national parks


List of National Park units on Twitter (Updated)

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Many of the National Park Service streams are often tended by people—experts in their fields—who get excited about nature and history and have a passion for protecting the places held in the public trust. For example, the African Burial Ground (a delightfully active one for such a small site) might share a resource for researching your slave ancestors in Virginia or link to a database that details the machinations of the slave trade. Other feeds may be manned by rangers who can answer history questions for you.




Mount Rushmore souvenirs that don’t look like Mount Rushmore

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Girl, you know it’s true. Mount Rushmore is empty-calorie patriotism, but it’s pretty. Local concerns overbuilt the amenities so much in the 1990s so that they’re still paying them off. Merely parking a car costs $11. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum took extreme care in rendering his four subjects accurately, but the piles of tourist junk hawked… Read more »


The Statue of Liberty is an Embarrassment

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At least, it was when it began. It was in the Depression of 1873. A few years before, a bunch of greedy New York bankers artificially jacked up the price of gold, causing a financial panic and sending America into a slump that lasted for years. (Sounding familiar yet?) Anyway, at the time, France was… Read more »


Harpers Ferry

A few years ago, I was doing something mundane when the feeling hit me. I want to go to Harpers Ferry, I thought. Can’t explain why. I went through a John Brown period about 15 years ago (doesn’t every American history buff go through a John Brown period?), when my collaborator and I were trying… Read more »